The Choice
by violaqu33n
Summary: Stuck on a boat with a dying man, Michael has to make a decision that will effect or end his life. Michael-centric


Because being a spy can be really hard unless you have some motivation.

_As a general rule, there are situations that you would rather not find yourself in. Cheating on your wife, getting busted by the cops, or being mugged rank high on most people's list. I am not most people: my list is more concentrated on being pinned down by superior firepower, having a wounded teammate, or having a secret black ops organization threaten my friends and family. As I pressed a blood soaked handkerchief into Victor's chest, I was also in the middle of all three bad situations. _

"Well, not to spoil the fun," Carla said, sounding very much like she would like to spoil the fun, "but the boat's wired with C4."

Add that to the list- being on a vehicle full of explosives.

While I was trying to think of something, anything that I could do as the sound of a helicopter got closer, Carla was screaming in my ear about how I had to kill Victor or she would blow us up, and then suddenly it ended and all I heard was a scream. She was dead and that meant someone had killed her, and that someone was either Fi or Sam. If they were close when Management got here, surrounded by agents with assault rifles...well I didn't want to think about it. I peered out the window and saw them running into the forest, Sam with a pistol and Fi with one of her big toys. They would be okay for the time being, or at least I could pretend they were, because at that moment, Victor was bleeding to death.

Victor clenched his teeth and his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "We gotta talk, big guy. You gotta get out there and get on top of this before her body cools." He snorted and I could see the pain on his face. " Take the file. Tell them when you found me, I turned on Carla, you lured her here, had your team take her out, and then killed me."

I stared at him. "Killed you?" No, I didn't have to kill him. That would wasn't going to be fatal immediately, and he would probably be okay if he got to a hospital in time. Fi and Sam could take him, just wait until Management had left and then slip him into the Saab, even though Fi wouldn't like all the blood on the leather...

Victor broke through my thoughts with a slap of reality. "It's over. And the only question is whether you're a traitor who helped me, or the ace operative who shot me." I wasn't either of those things, but there were only two ways Management would be willing to see it and only one of them would leave me alive. But I wasn't just going to kill Victor in cold blood, not like this. Yeah, the guy tried to kill me. So had Fi, a lot more, and I wasn't going to kill her any time soon.

Victor growled in his throat and I knew that was a sign that the blood was starting to choke him. "Help me out. I'm dead one way or the other. They get me alive and they're gonna take me apart. You know it has to be like this!" And I did. Carla's bullet had probably punctured the bottom of his lung and the top of his liver and intestines, one of the most painful places that will guarantee a slow death. I couldn't get him to a hospital any more than I could perform surgery on him right there. But I didn't want to shoot him and every inch of my instinct was screaming not to. He put his hand under the barrel of the gun and moved it slowly to his sternum, and his breathing became labored and fast, either from the pain or the oncoming death, I don't know.

"It was good playing with you, sport," and I looked away as he tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. "Now you get out. Get out while you can." I looked at him, shaking from pain and blood loss, face drained of color. And I just kept looking and looking and looking, like that would stop what I had to do, and I had almost worked my hand out from under the trigger and then the gun went off and there was a bang that I had heard thousands of times but it had never sounded so awful, and then he stopped shaking. Gently, I closed his eyes, if only so that they would stop staring at me like I was a murderer.

One of the very few pieces of proof that I have to say that humans are not evil is the fact that everyone, from drug lords to mob kingpins, reacts to someone dying right in front of your face. Even spies. I felt my eyes get wet and looked up, pressing my gun to my forehead. It was still a little bit warm from the bullet and for a spilt second, I saw it as something more than just a pistol or a tool-it was a something used to kill and hurt people. And I had pulled the trigger. I had always been the one pulling the trigger.

I looked at the black metal of the gun, the dull sheen from the sides and the smooth line of the trigger, and I thought about what it would mean to put the muzzle against my own chest and die like Victor. After all the constant experience I had with guns meeting the human body, I knew exactly where to put it so that the bullet wouldn't ricochet harmlessly off the breast bone, but imbed itself deep within the cardiac muscle, probably the left atrium, burst a few arteries, and I would be dead before I could feel anything. It would be much more quick and painless than walking out and dealing with whatever crap Management wanted.

Spies may work alone, but you're rarely totally isolated. You rely on connections to open doors, bribe warlords, and smuggle guns, and those connections are valuable, so you have to maintain them and keep assets working in your favor by whatever means necessary. Over time, assets become more than assets, they become friends: Sam, Lucy, hell, even Barry. And then sometimes friends become a little more than that. Fi. For whatever reason I had to die, was Fi enough to balance the good against the bad?

I grabbed the file, put on my sunglasses, and walked out of the cabin. Even as the armed drones grabbed me, as Management threatened me, as I jumped out of a helicopter into the ocean, I knew I had made the right choice.


End file.
